If I could Tell You
by charliespike18
Summary: It takes three years. He nearly laughs. - part of him thought it would just stay hidden. That she wouldn't ask - but she's clever, Madeleine, she can tell that something isn't right. It takes three years and a glass of wine. - Madeline and James talk about Vesper.


**_Caution: SPECTRE spoilers._ **

_Suppose the lions all get up and go,_  
 _And the brooks and soldiers run away;_  
 _Will Time say nothing but I told you so?_  
 _If I could tell you I would let you know._

\- WH Auden

* * *

It takes three years.

He nearly laughs. - part of him thought it would just stay hidden. That she wouldn't ask - but she's clever, Madeleine, she can tell that something isn't right.

It takes three years and a glass of wine.

He holds it close to his chest as she speaks, her voice nearly a whisper. It betrays to him, at least, that this is a question she doesn't want to ask. But she does anyway.

It takes three years, a glass of wine and a beautiful view.

They're sitting on the hotel balcony when she speaks, his eyes on the glittering lights. (And on the dead, in his mind's eye, but they're always there, aren't they?) she puts a hand on his leg he turns to face her. It's then she realises she doesn't know him quiet as well as she thought she did. He had secrets in his smile when he looks at her.

It takes three years, a glass of wine, a beautiful view and a visit to a city he never wanted go back to.

She asks what's wrong. He nearly laughs then too, because he doesn't want to talk about it but he hasn't got a clue how to tell her that. Once, he would have brushed it off - told her it was nothing but she, this girl who he should hate on principle, she knows him. It wouldn't be enough and she'd just ask again. So he just shakes his head because the words just won't come. He didn't want to come here in the first place.

It takes three years, a glass of wine, a beautiful view, a visit to a city that he never wanted to go back to and a look, just a look.

It was as they crossed the Realto, his gaze had fallen to a building. Yes fallen, like the building its self had. She'd watched him, his wife, and that's when she'd known. For all his complaints - it's too hot, too busy, too on the map - there is a real reason he didn't want to come here. She'd persuaded him in the end, but standing on that bridge she wonders is she shouldn't of. There's a look in his eye she hasn't seen before - it's the look of the haunted and it makes her catch her breath. She's never seen the look the passes over his face when he looks at the ruin of a building in the distance before.

It takes three years, a glass of wine, a beautiful view, a visit to a place he never wanted to go back to, a look and nothing, because that's when it happens.

So she asks, asks him why he really didn't want to come. There on that balcony, looking at that view - a glass of wine in hand. He turns, his eyes have the look they did on the Realto. He thinks, if she stopped there, he'd of been okay. But she keeps speaking, now adding another question. She brings up his name - Oberhauser, Bloefeld, whatever it is- and mentions the girl. Asks if he brought her here. He just laughs. It's without humour and full of pain, of something that sounds a little like regret. Then he nods. He's angry, and it's completely unfair because he's not angry at Madeline, no - not really, not now - but he's angry with Vesper. She's still ruining him from beyond the grave. He's angry with her - it's stupid though, because he's not angry about how she betrayed him, not anymore, because he can understand it. He's angry with her, he thinks, because death is the only betrayal can't forgive. He doesn't understand it.

They don't talk. No. He doesn't want to and his wife, he's sure, just wanted her idea's confirmed. She doesn't need details of her husband relationship with another woman. Later, when they're older and they've been married, a documentary about Venice flits on to the TV and he stares at it. They've gone, many times, since that first time yet when his wife looks at him, he feels like crying. "She's dead," he says, leaving the room. She doesn't come after him.

They never go back to Venice.

Walking back into the hotel room, that first time, he wonders why the fact her father is Mr White doesn't bother him. He guesses it's something thing to do with love. Love, the reason that the moment they got off the train in this fucking city he couldn't breathe. It's different, he thinks, the way he loves Madeline to the way he loves 'her'. It's much harder to love a ghost who betrayed you than a women who is the daughter of the man who helped break your heart. Some people might find that funny, that the man who helped Vesper break his heart, fathered the girl who put it back together again. He doesn't find it funny at all.

Lying in bed later that night, his wife beside him, he wonders how it took this long for it to come up.

It takes three years.

* * *

 _ **Thoughts?**_


End file.
